I Saw It Then

• Moksh Dave, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

Slowly, I shuffled along the dark streets of the ghostly city, Terrores, extremely frightened of the dark area surrounding me. Every now and then, I would gaze behind me. I had an unwanted feeling of someone-or something-following me, I mean, I’d played spies and stuff before in like primary school, but this was different. It was…disturbing. I was feeling…weird and frightened. It felt like there was something supernatural behind me.

I was surrounded by a massive flock of dark, leafless trees with confusing branches extending out in every direction. The thick bushes were randomly laid in any area on the side paths, all of them scrunched up with brown leaves. At least I thought they were brown, but it was difficult to make out in this eerie, terrifying night. Ahead of me were dozens of rocks scattered everywhere along the path. You could just see the faint lines indicating the turn of roads and the lanes and the carelessly done, dented curb on the edge of the road. It was scary. Terrifying. Desolate. Up above me was a crescent moon blowing its fantastic shine on us, but it felt like the earth was refusing the light as it was as dark as the space where the moon lived.

Suddenly, I heard something. Something loud and heavy. Something dangerous. Something I don’t think is your friendly mate coming to say hi to you. I cautiously lifted my head and peered behind. Again nothing. Again Desolate. Why was I hearing footsteps if there was nothing there? This was extremely frightening. “Calm down! Calm Down Jase!” I told myself, “There’s nothing behind you. No aliens. No humans. No animals. Nothing!”

Without warning, there it came again. However this time it was louder and heavier. It felt a lot closer. Once again I gazed behind me. Unexpectedly, a swish of wind pushed me back. I fell against something hard. The wind quickly evolved into a creature, small and old like Yoda in ‘Star Wars’. Next I did something I never should’ve done, I stared straight in his eye. By eye I meant his only eye! It was like staring into terror with horror engulfing me in its tight hands. He didn’t move a muscle or blink. At this point, I was as scared as a mouse. I screamed, “AAAAAAHHHHH”! I pulled myself up and tried to sprint as far away as I could while swimming in immense pain. Before I could even run a helpful few meters, I fell down again. It was too much pain. I couldn’t take it. I looked up to try and get a view of the silent sky, as if it could talk and give advice. Instead of that I found myself staring right in the face of the dangerous thing. A slight smile awakened in his deadly mouth. Who was ‘it’?